Loki and Bartleby Meet SEELE
by Author0fntent
Summary: What happens when the masterminds of Second Impact and would-be architects of Third Impact encounter a couple of fallen angels? And I'm talkin' about the kind that don't run amok in Tokyo-3. Witness as the anime Illuminati gets a taste of a different brand of dogma. One-shot. Could be seen as an alternate prequel to Dogma proper.


**Undisclosed location, November 2001...**

The holographic monoliths appeared as the SEELE council, a group of old men who happened to be the wealthiest on the planet, convened for another meeting to discuss the progress of their ultimate endeavor: the Human Instrumentality Project. Little did they know that this was to be the last meeting they would ever have.

"This meeting of the Human Instrumentality Committee will now come to order," Kihl began. "Have any of you any new business to report?"

"No," said the remaining eleven members of the Committee.

"Then we shall get right down to the subject at hand," Kihl said, before he noticed a peculiar scent in the air. "...Do I smell onion?"

The rest of the Committee found themselves sniffing the air as well, which shouldn't have been possible, considering that a) they were meeting remotely, and b) had left strict orders to their respective subordinates to not disturb them while the meeting was taking place. At that moment they turned their focus on where the source of the smell was coming from. Off to the side of the holograms, they saw a couch, the same kind of couch one would find in a waiting room. Sitting on the couch were two young men who appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties. One of them was the taller of the two, with a black crew-cut; he wore a gray t-shirt underneath a brick red hooded sweatshirt, underneath a long black overcoat, along with a pair of drab slacks and loafers. The other one had a boyish strawberry blonde haircut, and wore a light red t-shirt under a gray hooded sweatshirt underneath a black sport coat, along with jeans and a pair of sneakers. He'd been the one that was carving an onion with a small penknife.

The presence of these two did not amuse Kihl one bit. "I beg your pardon," Kihl started to say, "but may I ask what you're doing here? This space is highly restricted."

The two young men looked at Kihl's monolith, and then at each other, before either one spoke.

"You may proceed, _mon ami_," the onion-peeler implored of his colleague. At that, the taller one got up from his seat.

"Now where are our manners?" he said. "Just so we're clear here, the name's Bartleby. I'm gonna have to start by apologizing. My friend Loki here has a bit of a penchant for the dramatic."

"Oh come on!" a chagrined Loki exclaimed as he abruptly got up from the couch.

"Relax, I'm doing this," Bartleby said reassuringly. He then turned back to the holograms. "*AHEM* So...the 'Human Instrumentality Project'. A plan in which, by following a series of very complex 'instructions' given by the so-called 'Dead Sea Scrolls', humanity would be forcibly relieved of their physical selves, their souls merged into a gestalt being, with you twelve acting as its core consciousness." The holograms, of course, hid the look of utter astonishment on the faces of the Council, as they were flabbergasted. How did this young man know what their entire goal entailed? Only they knew what the endgame of the Project was.

Bartleby noticed he couldn't exactly see their reactions.

"You know what? Let's do away with the fancy Illuminati thing, it's not exactly a good way to hold a conversation."

With a wave of his hand, the monoliths vanished, exposing the faces of the Council, who became even more shocked by what the man had just done.

"Where was I?" he continued. "Oh yes-since you started the 'process' towards this endgame via Second Impact...drastically altering the planet's climate and rotation, and ruining the great landmass that is Antarctica, along with causing the deaths of billions, in the process, among other things...you've taken every opportunity to get your hooks into nearly every world power and the United Nations; buying off politicians, military leaders, and businessmen around the globe, influencing events so that your little pet project-GEHIRN-could get the adequate funding and support it needs for your exact purposes. One such being building essentially a replica of the very thing you used to set off Second Impact-Evangelions, right? Meanwhile, you pass yourselves off publicly as some benevolent think-tank called the 'UN Human Instrumentality Committee', a subcommittee overseeing the front organization for GEHIRN, formerly known as the Artificial Evolution Laboratory. In that guise, you present to the public a stunning variety of scientific gobbledygook that they'll scratch their heads over, but ultimately become bored by and move on, all the while thinking you're doing something that'll benefit humankind. Did I...Did I miss anything?"

The old men of SEELE were speechless. Bartleby had summed up pretty much everything they were doing in pursuit of their dark dream of instrumentality, and the immortality it came with. Things were quiet for a minute before Kihl spoke.

"You forgot the fact that the very beings we used to initiate Second Impact are in our possession," he said, as if compelled to speak truthfully. "While Adam the First Angel lies in embryonic form at the branch in Germany, Lilith the Second Angel is imprisoned underneath what used to be Hakone in Japan."

"Damn it!" cursed Bartleby in mock frustration over his leaving out that detail.

"Is there a point to this?" Kihl inquired.

Bartleby definitely had an answer, as he began listing off on his fingers. "YOU, and the rest of the council, are, in no short order, idolaters, murderers, liars, and thieves."

The council stared at Bartleby, not quite sure how to respond. Loki, at that point, got up from the couch and walked past Bartleby.

"Can't believe you forgot Adam and Lilith," he muttered as he passed by his colleague, who merely shook his head. Loki then walked up to Kihl's hologram, somehow appearing in his office at the same time. He stood next to the shocked old cyborg as he held in front of the man's visor a small figurine, carved from the onion he had earlier.

"It's you," Loki indicated as he put the figurine down on Kihl's desk. "Do you know much about voodoo?"

Kihl merely raised an eyebrow at that question.

"It's a fascinating practice," Loki continued. "No real doctrine of faith to speak of, more of an arrangement of superstitions, the most well-known of which..." he said as he eyed the figurine on the desk, "is the voodoo doll. You see-" At that moment, Loki sneezed. He looked around the room but no one spoke. He then shrugged and continued his spiel. "-a mock-up of an individual is subjected to various pokes and prods. The desired result is that the individual will feel those effects."

"Call security, now!" Kihl ordered. Just as Kihl's secretary was about to reach for the phone, Loki threw his knife into it, completely damaging it. This act startled the rest of the council members.

"All lines are currently down," Loki said with a subtle hint of intimidation in his voice.

Bartleby then stepped in on the other side of Kihl's desk "Okay, I'm gonna have to apologize-" he started to say.

"Would you knock it off?" Loki berated Bartleby.

"You're doing it again," Bartleby chided Loki in turn, causing him to swear. "Stop. What did we talk about?" Bartleby then turned to address Kihl and the rest of the council as he walked behind the elderly cyborg. "*AHEM* You are responsible for seeding the beginnings of one of the most heinous examples of human genocide ever committed, many of its acts violating six of the Ten Commandments. More than that, I'm afraid not a one of you passes for a decent human being. Your continued existence...is a mockery of morality. Like you, Herr Kihl. In the days since Second Impact's occurrence, you and your associate...Gendo Ikari, I think his name was?...were instrumental in helping the UN cover up the real story behind the disaster involving Adam and the Katsuragi Expedition, which among other things left Professor Katsuragi's only daughter, Misato, deeply traumatized and currently catatonic, unable to speak."

"And with little-to-no human contact, no less," Loki added after he chuckled lightly.

Bartleby then turned to the now-startled council member from France. "Monsieur Morel," he began to say, "You blackmailed and bribed a good number of the staff and cabinet of the French president to secure their leader's loyalty to SEELE's efforts, and have continued to maintain pressure on these people since then. For one cabinet member, it became too much, and he killed himself three months later."

Bartleby then turned his focus on the American member.

"Mr. Boone did the same with his country's leaders, in addition to the more personal crime of disowning his gay son. _Very_ compassionate."

His next target also received a verbal lashing over a personal crime of their own, in addition to their participation in the overall conspiracy, all while Loki popped a CD into a small player, which soon came to life as the sounds of Don Henley's "Building the Perfect Beast" came on in the background. Each member was mortified by having the skeletons in their respective closets brought to light, each worse than the last, even more so considering that Kihl's secretary was still witnessing it all. At one point, Bartleby walked up to the increasingly perturbed secretary, whose name was Hilde.

"YOU..." he said as he eyed her, "...are an innocent. You lead a good life. Good for you."

He then turned his attention back to the rest of the council.

"But the rest of you..." he said. "Have enough skeletons in your closets to fill something along the lines of the world's largest mass grave."

"You really are a bunch of sick f***s," Loki added. He then gave Bartleby a congratulatory look. "Good," he said in awe of his colleague's speech.

"Not bad, man," Bartleby replied, referring to Loki's own words earlier.

"That's great work," Loki added as he congratulated Bartleby again.

"Very good," he replied as he walked out of the office and out of the sight of the rest of the council members. Loki then turned back to the council.

"Well, alone at last," he said in an amused tone. "With the exception of Hilde here, there isn't a decent human being amongst you. Not one. Do you know what makes a human being decent? Fear. And therein lies the problem. None of you has anything left to fear anymore. You rest comfortably in seats of inscrutable power, hiding behind your false idol, far from judgment, lives shrouded in secrecy, even from one another. But not from God." He then walked back to Kihl's desk, where he picked up his little onion figurine. "Oh, forgot my little voodoo doll," he said. "Man, it really looks just like you, doesn't it?" He eyed the doll curiously, making Kihl even more nervous. "Look, if I believed enough in this... I wonder..." With that, Loki smashed the doll into the desk. The council screamed in terror before they realized that nothing happened. Loki snickered at their response. "Heh. Come on. I don't believe in voodoo! Voodoo..." Loki, shaking his head dismissively, then exited the sight of the council. As the council members began to collect themselves, Loki then re-entered, with a Desert Eagle handgun drawn. "But I do believe in this!" he said as he opened fire, the bullets somehow reaching each council member despite the distance and the fact they were communicating by hologram. Bartleby, sitting on a couch nearby, was reading a magazine while he heard the chaos that was going on.

"DON'T RUN! DON'T RUN! FAKES! FAKES, ALL OF YOU, FAKES! AND HERE, ONE TO GROW ON!" he heard Loki shout as he emptied the gun into each council member.

Bartleby shook his head.

"'But I do believe in this'...What does that mean?" he asked himself, pondering his colleague's choice of words.

A minute later, every member of the inner circle of SEELE was dead. The only two people left standing were Loki himself, the pistol still smoking, and a terrified Hilde, blood slightly splattered on her face. Loki then walked up to her, increasing her terror even further. Surprisingly, Loki took out a stick of gum and held it up to her.

"Gum?" he offered. "Go on, it's OK, you've done nothing wrong, those guys were finks and you're a pure soul." His expression changed quickly as he pointed the gun at her. "But you didn't say 'God bless you' when I sneezed." Hilde shrieked and attempted to shield herself with her arms. Luckily for her, Loki's hand was stayed.

"LOKI!" Bartleby scolded. This had the effect of causing Loki to lower his weapon.

"You're getting off light," Loki told Hilde.

"Loki!" Bartleby called, indicating it was time to go.

"I know, I'm coming," Loki replied. As he walked off, he said one last thing to Hilde: "You're so lucky."

**What happened from there, you ask? Well, a few significant things...**

Without the threat of SEELE's reprisal hanging over him, Kozo Fuyutsuki took his findings-the result of his continued investigation into the SEELE/UN cover-up-to the public, which quickly pounced in outrage over what they detailed.

A scapegoat was found in Gendo Ikari, the only one with any real knowledge of SEELE's plans in full detail. But before he was taken into custody, this time for good, another tough break landed in his lap. When his wife Yui found out about what she'd nearly gotten herself into with him, she slapped him hard and said the following to his face: "I want a divorce, _Rokubungi_." Thus, they split up after merely two years of marriage.

Other than that, acting upon the evidence brought to light, Fuyutsuki, with the aid and input of Yui, Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, and Naoko Akagi, led the efforts that ultimately resulted in the permanent destruction of both Adam and Lilith. SEELE's followers the world over were also rounded up.

Misato Katsuragi, upon learning that her father's killers had been identified and had met their ends, felt enough of a sense of closure that she began speaking again, returning to more or less a normal life. (Though she still ended up meeting Ritsuko Akagi and Ryoji Kaji, only much earlier, in high school.)

Yui and Kyoko turned to different scientific fields for their careers, and were able to raise their children in peace, with Shinji and Asuka experiencing a normal childhood.

And as for Loki and Bartleby? Well, the two fallen angels, having gotten their small side errand out of the way, continued on to their true destination, a soon-to-be rededicated church in the small town of Red Bank, New Jersey, USA...

**END.**

****Author's Note(s)**  
Came up with this after seeing the sequence from ****_Dogma _****of Loki and Bartleby taking out the board of the company behind Moobie. I just thought, wouldn't it be funny if their targets were the SEELE inner circle instead, right before the events of ****_Evangelion _****proper even began? Sort of like Traitor of All Traitors' "Reversal of Misfortune", as if directed by Kevin Smith.**


End file.
